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is the premiere daily MMOG newsletter, only from Ten
Ton Hammer!

Welcome
to the 1,427th
edition
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Even in the age of casual
games, strategy games and MMORPGs still make up the core of PC gaming.
Better yet, 2010 is proving to be a big year for strategy games.
We’ll offer a highlight reel of the best RTS and TBS gaming
has to offer in today’s
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/loading/2010/sep/27">Loading…
A New Strategy.

cellspacing="0" width="100%">

The
Pulse

You vote with what you
view at Ten Ton Hammer, and the
result
is the Ten Ton Pulse (
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/thepulse/">What
is The Pulse?).

October is just around the corner, so you know what that means.
It’s that festive time once again when we get to raise or
virtual tankards in World of Warcraft in celebration of the annual
in-game Brewfest event! To help get you into the spirit (or should that
be spirits?) of the event, we’ll be giving away not just one,
but two signed Tankard O’ Terror’s from
href="http://www.taverncraft.com/">Taverncraft.
For full contest details be sure to race your ram over to our
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/giveaways/wow/brewfest">Brewfest
Tankard O’ Terror Contest page!

Enter now as the contest ends on Monday, September 27th at midnight!

style="font-weight: bold;">Rift
- Ask the Devs!

Have you got a question about
style="font-style: italic;">Rift:
Planes of Telera?
Well, you have a chance to ask the devs at Trion Worlds directly. Just
submit your questions
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=53660">in
our forums.

What's
your PlayerScore? World of
Warcraft players, find out at
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/playerscore">playerscore.com.

Loading... Filling orcs with
glee since the Second Age.

Of the two games categories that lend themselves best to the
computer- MMORPGs and strategy games, - the latter category
has gotten more love from developers and publishers to-date in 2010.
Even as an editor of one of the world’s largest MMORPG media
sites, that’s ok with me, both because I’m an avid
hex gamer and because the RTS category (and especially TBS) has been in
a fair-sized rut since the mid-aughts.

Arguably, RTS needed
style="font-style: italic;">StarCraft II
far less than TBS needed
style="font-style: italic;">Civ V.Company
of Heroes, the
style="font-style: italic;">Dawn of War
series, the
style="font-style: italic;">Anno
games, and Sins
of a Solar Empire saved RTS
games from the travesty that was games like the
style="font-style: italic;">Supreme Commander
series. But in TBS circles we’ve pretty much had Creative
Assembly’s
style="font-style: italic;">Total War
series and a host of games released through small online publishers
(most of which emphasize realism over gameplay, usually to a fault)
since 2005.

The relative scarcity of turn-based strategy games hurts me almost as
much as the dearth of
style="font-style: italic;">WoW
and free-to-play clones because I was weaned on TBS rather than RPGs.
Like MMORPGs, the bursty pace of gameplay provided more opportunities
for socializing rather than the madcap testosterone-fest of multiplayer
RTS. I trace my gaming heritage back to series like
style="font-style: italic;">Civilization,Panzer
General, and
style="font-style: italic;">Jagged Alliance,
and believe it or not, but I actually played a ton of
style="font-style: italic;">Civ II
and Panzer
General online via email
– talk about lag! And in college, while my nerd pals were
playing D&D,
I spent countless snowy evenings huddled over taped-together purple hex
map dittos playing
style="font-style: italic;">BattleTech.

So thank goodness for new releases like
style="font-style: italic;">Elemental: War of Magic
and Civilization
V.
style="font-style: italic;">Elemental
has been on my radar for over a year, largely because I think Stardock
is a class operation and something about the cell-shaded look appeals
to me. If you’re a fantasy RTS enthusiast, be warned
– the game is a little rough around the edges: local combat,
should you choose to duke it out rather than auto-resolve (and you
usually should), is smart but not very stylish. Keep playing and
you’ll be rewarded with a relatively seamless story
experience with solid open-ended RPG elements.

It took me a few playthroughs to realize the subtle, stepwise genius ofCivilization
V. The single unit per hex
rule streamlines military decisions greatly, and the move from grid to
hex-based was equally inspired. But where previous
style="font-style: italic;">Civ
games forced players to make black or white decisions on the
conversationally impolite topics of politics and religion,
style="font-style: italic;">Civ V
has mix-and-match policy decisions governed by culture growth. The
growth of your empire is held in check by the happiness of your
citizenry, now a global (rather than city-specific) variable. Both of
these decisions make real-world sense and make the game less of a
plate-spinning act. For a little more on
style="font-style: italic;">Civ V
strategies to start you on your way, check out our latest
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/civ5/guides/combat-features">
style="font-style: italic;">Civ V
combat features guide.

Of course, the biggest strategy release of the year to date was
style="font-style: italic;">StarCraft II,
which we can almost take for granted. Even if you’re not big
into RTS or multiplayer, you’ll be excused for playing
style="font-style: italic;">StarCraft II
on its storyline and pop culture merits alone. If you haven’t
played it or are waiting for the inevitable battle chest,
you’ll find an
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/starcraft2/guides">extensive
assortment of guides right
here at Ten Ton Hammer to help you with those tough fights and
irrevocable decisions along the way.

But disposable anagrams and rude Digital River pre-order problems
aside, R.U.S.E.
has me by the short hairs at the moment. Confession time: I
can’t get enough of quality WW2 games, and
style="font-style: italic;">R.U.S.E.
delivers. I’m not sure about its bid to introduce fakery and
deception to the RTS category - stationary cardboard tanks to snooker
recon photography = real, massive scale cardboard tank assaults to open
vulnerabilities in your opponent = stretch – but I found the
gameplay well-paced and unit saavy, the graphics gorgeously rendered,
and the historical feel and story surprisingly nuanced. For an
alternate take, be sure to check out our resident strategy game
mastermind’s
href="http://www.tentonhammer.com/main/reviews/ruse">review
of R.U.S.E.,
posted today.

So however this fall’s lineup of MMORPGs and expansions
fares, we can take comfort in these signs of life for PC gaming. Are
you a strategy enthusiast? What games are you playing on the RTS / TBS
front? Tell us in the
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=53727">Loading…
forum!

What has over 4200 posts, 141,000 views and lives in the
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/forumdisplay.php?f=561">Ten
Ton Torched forum? It's
our Daily "It Made Me Laugh" thread, which has been making gamers laugh
since early 2008. Here's one recent
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=442671&postcount=4284">highlight,
and here's
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showpost.php?p=442490&postcount=4264">another.
Now, go explore (fair warning: some of this humor is NSFW) and
href="http://forums.tentonhammer.com/showthread.php?t=24282">post
your own funny stuff.

MMO
Gaming has been overdue for a new take on combat for some time.
Vindictus delivers on that. But can it hold the audience outside of the
battles? Find out as Ten Ton Hammer previews Nexon's Vindictus.

There
is nothing in a real time strategy game as glorious as a well executed
plan that results in flawless victory. R.U.S.E. is a game that enables
you to command all aspects of war, and most notably, the deception part
of it. It is a game of chess, and it punishes those wrong moves you
perform with swift and utter defeat just like the board game. But is
the game itself guilty of making the wrong design moves? Find out in
our Ten Ton Hammer review of the new RTS from Eugen Systems and Ubi
Soft, R.U.S.E.!

To
lead a civilization from settlers to the stars will require some
bloodshed here and there in the wonderful world of Civilization V. Even
though your allies may be content with you on the surface, they're
really just using you until they're ready to strike. Be ready for
anything with our guide to Civilization V - New Combat Features and
Strategy!

CCP
has begun to make some of the details of their next free expansion,
Incursion, available to the community through various channels. Ten Ton
Hammer Contributing Writer, Space Junkie, has been tirelessly sifting
through the hints and the rumors to present them to you. Just the
facts, ma'am.

Can
you imagine Luke Skywalker attempting to walk the path of a Jedi
without the assistance of Obi-Wan, the Princess, or Han? BioWare is
attempting to recreate the magic of the relationships that we remember
so well with the companion system in Star Wars: The Old Republic. Will
having a built in duo inhibit the group dynamic or will these unique
sidekicks add another level of immersion? Read up on companions and
what we think they will bring to SWTOR.

When
you are exploring and leveling in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm one of
the final zones you will reach is the southern desert area of
Uldum. This zone has been locked away for generations,
however
due to the upheaval of Azeroth a way has been opened. This Egyptian
inspired zone features Titan Lore, a new cat-centaur race called the
Tol’vir and the Ramkahen, and much more. Oh, and of
course where
there are tombs to explore you can be sure that our favourite
archaeologist Harrison Jones will show up. Join Byron
“Messiah”
Mudry as he explores this new zone meant for levelling from 83-84.